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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25028890">everything i love gets lost in the drawers</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/epigraphs/pseuds/epigraphs'>epigraphs</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fleabag (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Open Ending, Post-Finale, Soul-Searching, i really just had to get this out of my system, introspective</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 08:02:39</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,343</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25028890</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/epigraphs/pseuds/epigraphs</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>They fucked and now she’s fucked and she doesn’t fucking know how she’s ever supposed to forget his touch.</p><p>a post-series ramble</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Fleabag/Priest (Fleabag)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>102</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>everything i love gets lost in the drawers</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>hello! this has been sitting in my google drive for months and i just needed to get it out. shoutout to seven years of catholic education for the background knowledge; i bet none of my teachers thought it'd get used for this. </p><p>title is from 'slow show' by the national. pwb, i wish i could write even half as well as you do.</p><p>(two lines of dialogue are taken from the show.)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She leaves the bus stop after sending the damn fox walking down the street, after him, because of course, He isn’t about to pass up an opportunity for irony, to make it abundantly clear just how much she’s been a homewrecker in a committed marriage that she wasn’t ever going to split up anyway. </p><p>
  <em>Fuck.</em>
</p><p>For just a moment — a fleeting second, when she was under him in her bed, pressed up against him by the wall of her father’s house, thigh-to-thigh on the bus shelter bench — she’d let herself pretend that this could go somewhere, beyond a quick snog in his confessional or a shag that made him forget his vows for a night. </p><p>He’d certainly mentioned God that night; he’d taken the Lord’s name in vain more times than she could count, some saints too, a litany of expletives and blasphemy that felt like the gentlest of caresses, slipping off his tongue like a blessing. Her own cries had soon followed — she’d called upon the Father, Son and Holy Ghost to bear witness to their act — and they’d been tangled together, flesh against flesh, no room between them for anything or anyone. Every word out of his lips had felt like a benediction, a plea and a prayer wrapped up into one, and she’d accepted them greedily, drawing them out of his mouth with kisses and touches and moans of her own. </p><p>She’d pulled off his collar first, with a wink and a <em> Father </em> that had made him blush as scarlet as Communion wine; he’d turned three shades darker when he saw what was hidden under her coat — only scant scraps of lace and the scent of coconut. She hopes the memory of it will haunt him for days, rear its head the next time he hires coconuts for a church fete, a subtle reminder of her, of the time and space they’d stolen and shared. </p><p>They were always going to have sex. Really, it was an inevitability at that point, but still, the thrill of anticipation and uncertainty and a flutter of something else coursed through her veins at the mere thought of him, standing before her, utterly on edge. </p><p>“I can’t have sex with you because I’ll fall in love with you. And if I fall in love with you, I won’t burst into flames, but my life will be fucked.” </p><p>How true his words had been, because they fucked and now she’s fucked and she doesn’t fucking know how she’s ever supposed to forget his touch. If she allowed herself to lean into the cliche, she’d say they made love that night — and maybe they did, because it feels like she left a part of her heart with him, hidden between her sheets and on the bus shelter bench, dissolving into the darkness. </p><p>“It’ll pass,” he’d said, because it has to; there’s no other way. </p><p>She’ll move on with her life and he’ll move on with his, but a little piece of her will always be his; this she knows with certainty. Her mum has a piece too, and Claire, and Boo, and now her Priest, because sometimes all the love in her chest feels too big to handle, so she doles it out in pieces like it’s pick ‘n’ mix sweets, different varieties for different people. </p><p>Person after person chips away at her heart, and she’s working on sanding down the jagged edges they leave in their wake, because that’s what well-adjusted people do, damn it, and she’s trying to be one of them. As much as she wants to take the piss at people who drink flaxseed smoothies and keep a diary for their appointments and don’t try to play mind games with their therapists… well, she has to admit that it’s easier sometimes, to play the part and do the work and keep her head down and risk becoming a boring person for a while. </p><p>So. </p><p>So, she could have followed that fox, could have run after him down the street and yelled and pulled him behind a tree and snogged him senseless again, hoping to delay the inevitable for one more night, maybe two, but she didn’t. </p><p>He deserves better and she does too. She loves her Priest, loves him so fucking much that it aches in her bones and makes her want to scale the walls of the rectory just to catch a glimpse of him through the stained glass, drenched in sunlight — church ban be damned. </p><p>(Sometimes, she wonders what he looks like when he prays: if his eyes slip shut and his features relax, how he loses himself in it. Is his face the same as it looks when it’s in between her legs? God, she hopes so.) </p><p>But she loves him enough not to go, to keep her distance and admit she was the other woman (Other partner? She’s not quite sure what terms to use when one refers to cheating on the Divine.) and he was never going to leave Him for her. Not that she’d want him to. </p><p>The church is as much a part of him as the guilt over Boo is a part of her, and she wonders if he feels like he’s carrying daemons sometimes too; if he wishes he could shed the constant presence lingering in the background, slightly out of reach but always there, reminding, remembering. </p><p>If he wishes he could make decisions and experience things without filtering them first, looking through two sets of eyes instead of standing on his own two feet. </p><p>Maybe that’s why he’d kissed her with such abandon, rough and hot and desperate, licking into her mouth so she shuddered while he practically preened. Why he’d tried to wrap himself around her like a clinging vine, lose himself in her entirely, buried to the hilt so there was no room left for second-guessing, for second thoughts, for, <em> Jesus Christ, </em>anything but the movements of his hips and the sound of their heavy breathing, a symphony filling the air between them. </p><p>It was deliciously tawdry, the thing they had — the Priest and the café girl, sneaking around, defying Him — and if she were a lesser person, which trust her, she once was, she’d unabashedly proclaim her conquest and fly the flag of defiance. She shagged a <em> Priest, </em>and her old self would be proud, would add it to the list, next to the hot misogynist and the arsehole guy and the one with the buck teeth, on display like stamps or snuff boxes or snow globes, there for the world to admire. </p><p>But she’s not that person anymore — at least she’s trying not to be — so she files away the memories for a rainy day, moves on with her life as best she can and tries not to dwell on the <em> could have beens. </em> </p><p>Still, she drinks more tinned G&amp;T’s than she ever did before, watches out for foxes in the dark London streets, seriously considers attending another Quaker meeting once or twice. Maybe she’ll have another revelation about life. </p><p>She video-calls Claire in Finland, keeps up her friendship with the banker, avoids her Godmother as best she can. She gets drinks with Belinda and rants about men, and sometimes sleeps with them too, but it’s fun now, less desperate and rushed, and it’s something she can go without for a while, happily. </p><p>Some might say she’s growing.</p><p>She builds a life for herself (and Hilary) that she’s maybe actually a little bit proud of and it’s a new feeling, being content, but it’s something she thinks she could really get used to. </p><p>So it really shouldn’t come as a surprise, when, months later, she hears the café’s doorbell jingle and the sound of footsteps nearing the counter, where she’s filling out an invoice. </p><p>“One moment, please,” she says, not looking up, <em> this </em>close to completing the form. When she does glance upwards, seconds later, she feels her heart stop in her chest. </p><p>“Hi,” he says, sporting the same sheepish smile she’s tried so hard to forget. </p><p>
  <em> Fuck. </em>
</p>
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